


Like You Are Now

by AdorableDoom



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Background Relationships, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 00:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10910760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdorableDoom/pseuds/AdorableDoom
Summary: "Well, what does he look like?"Young, Baze thought. Painfully, horribly young.





	Like You Are Now

  
   "What does he look like?"  
    "Who?"  
    "The one who destroyed the Death Star, what does he look like?"  
     Baze rolled his eyes but scanned the crowd none the less. A sizable crowd had gathered in the hanger to await the return of the surviving pilots and had grown so much in the hours that had passed since that monstrosity had been wiped from existence that the impromptu party had spilled from the base into the humid jungle outside. Tonight they would celebrate. Tomorrow they would mourn.  
    The pilots.  
    Alderaan.  
    Scarif.  
    Jedha.  
     And then the fight, the war, would rage on. Chirrut nudged him none too gently in the side with his staff. He grinned when Baze glared down at him, inclining his head in the direction of the battered white freighter that looked more like it belonged in a scrapyard than a battlefield. Baze followed his gaze and was annoyed albeit not surprised when he found the man (or rather more accurately the boy) in question talking with a massive Wookie who roared with laughter and yanked the much smaller being into a hug that lifted him clean off the ground. "Well," Chirrut prompted, "what does he look like?"  
Young, Baze thought. Painfully, horribly young. Too young. His gaze moves through the crowd again, searching for familiar faces. The faces of the strangers who had become his friends.  
    Their pilot, Bodhi Rook who was talking animatedly to a dark haired pilot in an outlandishly orange jumpsuit who was looking at Bodhi in something like awe. Cassian Andor, leaning heavily on a cane, his back stiff with discomfort bordering on pain but smiling none the less. Jyn Erso stood at the captain's side, had not left his side since she had opened her eyes in medical a few standard days ago. Days. Force to think it had only been days.  
    She'd kept her vigil a few beds down from where Baze had been keeping his own. Her arm was curled affectionately but protectively around his waist, taking some of his weight off his still healing leg while his arm was draped around her shoulders in the same affectionate protective manner. They were laughing with the young Alderaanian princess who had risked her life to get the plans they had risked theirs to get. Baze looks at all of them. Bodhi, Cassian, Jyn, the princess, the pilot who had delivered the fatal shot.  
    They are all so young.  
    So very, very young.  
    Standing among them, Baze feels like an old man. He is an old man. Older than he ever thought he would get to be. He had been young once though it seemed so long ago now. Another life it seemed.  
War was a terrible thing. He had lived through the devastation of the Clone Wars and had thought, foolishly, there would never be war worse than that. And then the Star Destroyers had appeared in the skies above Jedha. He had never been so wrong about anything. War broke you.  
    It made good people do horrible things. It made kind people cruel. Baze looks at them again. Let them be the last, Baze prayed, let them be the last. Let their children know peace. Never let them know the fear and devastation of war.  
    Let them be the last.  
    Let them have the chance be young.  
    Chirrut's hand slipped into his, squeezing lightly. Baze laced their fingers together and gripped his hand tight. "What does he look like?" he asked again, softer this time. Baze could have lost him. He could have never heard his voice again.  
No. No, if he had lost Chirrut, Baze knew he would have been close behind. Baze looked again at the boy, Luke Skywalker. The boy from Tatooine. The pilot who had destroyed the Death Star. The boy who would someday be a Jedi.  
     The Force had been long lost to Baze but he did not need it to know this was true. His gaze finds his friends once more. Bodhi, Cassian, and Jyn. He looks at each of them and then he looked at the princess who would become a general and the farm boy who would become a Jedi. He looks at each of them and he knows. The Empire would fall. The galaxy would know peace. The Jedi would rise from the ashes. Baze gripped Chirrut's hand once more.  
     "Hope."

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Cat Steven's song Father and Son because I've been listening to the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 soundtrack nonstop since I saw the movie. And crying.


End file.
